Outdoor skating rinks in cities with colder climates, like many cities in Canada, are important pieces of civic infrastructure. School of Cities funded research has highlighted the importance of public parks within urban neighbourhoods, particularly for residents who don't have their own private outdoor space. Outdoor skating rinks within parks provide residents the opportunity to affordably partake in outdoor physical activity and social interaction, especially on winter days when other types of outdoor activities are limited due to low temperatures or snowfall.

The City of Toronto currently operates 54 artificial ice rinks in public parks. There are also a few independently operated outdoor rinks in the city. Many of the City operated rinks have boards and are used both for leisure skating and ice hockey (i.e. shinny); some rinks are skating trails which are only used for leisure skating; and some sites have both a rink with boards and a skating pad or trail used for leisure skating. The City operated rinks are free, and at most times of day are available for leisure skating or ice hockey (the latter is typically scheduled based on age group and/or gender). The City of Toronto's website lists the schedules and details for each rink.

Outdoor skating rinks in Toronto are quite popular, evidenced by thousands of online reservations due to limited spots during the COVID-19 pandemic and public backlash when a rink closes. Since they are free to use, they are generally an affordable option for winter activity (outside of the costs of buying or renting skates). Outdoor rinks also do not go unused during the warmer months: those with boards are often home to activities like lacrosse, pickle ball, and cycle polo, while skating trails are often used for roller skating or skateboarding.

Mapping proximity To outdoor rinks

While there are over 50 outdoor rinks in Toronto, there are large swaths of the population that do not live close to a rink and thus have to travel long distances to access them. To investigate how this varies across the city we have created a map showing the locations of outdoor skating rinks in Toronto, with the background of the map coloured by the time it takes to travel to the nearest outdoor skating rink. This is a type of isochrone map, and it highlights which parts of the city have better or worse accessibility to outdoor skating rinks.

The map has a toggle for switching between travel times by walking or by public transit. Clicking on a rink will show a popup displaying the name of the rink or park that the rink is in.

Travel Time to the Nearest Outdoor Skating Rink (Minutes):

Overall, we can see substantial differences in proximity to outdoor rinks across the city. Almost all of the former City of Toronto is within a 30-minute walk to the nearest outdoor rink. Conversely, residents in many Scarborough neighbourhoods have to travel much further to access outdoor rinks. Etobicoke, on the other hand, has a greater number of outdoor rinks, most built prior to amalgamation in the late 1990s.

Note that we treated all outdoor skating rinks equally on this map, but there is variation in what programs each rink offers. For example, downtown Toronto has several rinks (e.g. Nathan Phillips Square, College Park), but these are only open for leisure skating, i.e. they do not permit ice hockey. Mapping proximity to rinks that offer ice hockey (and additionally for specific age groups) would change the pattern on the map. Similarly, not all outdoor rinks have the same schedules. Some have more hours for public leisure skating and ice hockey than others, usually due to rink times being reserved for private events. A more in-depth map could additionally examine how accessibility varies at different times of day and days of the week based on these schedules, similar to University of Toronto lead research on access to grocery stores in Toronto.

Note as well that there are also a number of indoor skating rinks in Toronto, but we do not include them on this map, since indoor rinks have far fewer public skating hours and typically do not have public ice hockey times. Indoor rinks usually require a small fee for entrance. Skating indoors is also a different experience than outdoors, as part of the attraction of outdoor skating rinks is being outside during the winter.

Who has access?

Transportation researchers, such as the those working within the Mobilizing Justice partnership, are increasingly calling for more efforts to identify and remediate inequalities in accessibility to important destinations - including sites for affordable recreational and leisure activities - particularly if inequalities exist among equity-seeking groups like low-income households and recent immigrants.

Below we have created four maps, comparing demographic data from the 2021 Canadian Census to the location of outdoor skating rinks in Toronto. The first map shows population density for reference. This highlights how some of the most-dense neighbourhoods have rinks nearby, but several nodes of high density in the inner-suburbs do not. The next three maps compare the location of outdoor rinks to three demographic groups; low-income residents, visible minorities, and immigrants. Each of these maps is coloured by the percent in each group relative to the overall population in the neighbourhood. We find that immigrants and visible minorities have worse accessibility to outdoor rinks relative to the overall population, partly due to higher proportions in the inner-suburb of Scarborough. The average travel time to the nearest rink for each demographic group is noted below each map.

Catchment areas

Another way of looking at the geographic variations in the location of skating rinks is to map how many people are served by each skating rink. The City of Toronto's 2019-2038 Parks & Recreation Facilities Master Plan states that there should be at least one outdoor skating rink per 100,000 residents. At over 50 rinks and a population of just over 3 million, the City is currently meeting its internally-defined goal. However, the picture is different when mapping the catchment area of each rink and counting the population that resides in each one.

Check out the map below. We generated this from the travel times shown on the map at the top of this page, grouping the city into areas based on their nearest outdoor skating rink. This is a type of Voronoi diagram that, in this case, is derived by shortest walking time. Areas that are more than a 60 minute walk from a rink are deemed inaccessible, and are coloured in grey. By counting the population in each catchment area, we can map how many residents each rink serves, assuming residents would usually skate at the rink nearest to them.

The darkest areas on the map indicate outdoor rinks that serve a large population, and do not meet the City's goal of one rink per 100,000 residents. As the city continues to grow in population, it would be prudent to site any new outdoor skating rinks within these areas, particularly where there is expected population growth in the near future (e.g. The Golden Mile area along Eglinton in Scarborough has very low proximity to rinks currently, and is expected to grow by well over 45,000 residents in the coming years). Mindful siting of new outdoor rinks would help the City adequately meet its internal planning goals, and reduce existing inequalities in proximity to outdoor skating rinks both geographically and among different demographic groups.